http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/business/college-degree-re...

Consider the 45-person law firm of Busch, Slipakoff & Schuh here in Atlanta, a place that has seen tremendous growth in the college-educated population. Like other employers across the country, the firm hires only people with a bachelor’s degree, even for jobs that do not require college-level skills.

This prerequisite applies to everyone, including the receptionist, paralegals, administrative assistants and file clerks. Even the office “runner” — the in-house courier who, for $10 an hour, ferries documents back and forth between the courthouse and the office — went to a four-year school.

I would think that the turnover would be high. I understand that this is a tight economy, but if I were such an employee it would be just a pit stop on my longer term job search.

Within a year of being hired as a file clerk, around Halloween 2011, Ms. Atkinson was promoted twice to positions in marketing and office management.

With fluff degrees, there are only so many options. The company is expanding, and using the entry level positions as training/screening.

De-motivation 101

It's also the Federal Governmint.

To do what I used to do in the Govt. I'd have to have a Masters of PHD.

I had to laugh back in 2000 when my job was relocated to Texas and I opted for early retirement instead of moving: When they posted the job position opening on the company's "intranet" board, it said "Bachelor's Degree Required".

It was funny because out of those of us who were currently doing the job -- successfully -- only one had a degree. And hers was a Masters degree in Economics, which made her rather overqualified for what we did.

Thinking now that if I had to come out of retirement now, I'd never make it -- except maybe some sort of self-employment.

I had to laugh back in 2000 when my job was relocated to Texas and I opted for early retirement instead of moving: When they posted the job position opening on the company's "intranet" board, it said "Bachelor's Degree Required".

It was funny because out of those of us who were currently doing the job -- successfully -- only one had a degree. And hers was a Masters degree in Economics, which made her rather overqualified for what we did.

Thinking now that if I had to come out of retirement now, I'd never make it -- except maybe some sort of self-employment.
__________________________

I know the degree thing is kind of crazy and silly.

I worked my way up the ranks, and I at the end had to laugh out loud at the meetings I would have with personnel toward the end. I would be forced every time to include degree required for positions I wanted to fill, because of the banded nature of our compensation system, after a certain point you could not be hired externally without a degree.

I would repeatedly have to find folks with degrees to do positions I had not only done, but passed through and left behind without a degree, silly stuff.

It got even worse in time. After a while certification became an issue. I had to demand a person who I have no doubt knew more than any of the instructors he had, take a class to get certified as a network engineer.

I hated getting to the point where I had to pass up qualified people because they did not have pieces of paper saying they had learned what I was going to interview them about because I didn't trust their pieces of paper anyway. I hate bureaucratic putzes(I know superfluous word there), on the upside my earlier hires were all stuck unless they wanted to hang a shingle because I had a prejudice for no degree in my earlier hiring, and most other companies had adopted the same absurd practices.

I know the degree thing is kind of crazy and silly.
-----------------

Yeah - credentialism taking the place of knowledge.

arrete